As per an estimate by United Nation, the world’s population may cross 9.8 billion by 2050. The growing population would also increase the demand for food supply. Countries would need to boost their food production. With the increase in population, the food supply chains are becoming more complex. There are multiple challenges in reducing food wastage and delivering safe, high-grade nutritious food.
The CII Supply Chain Leadership Conclave was held on 11th September 2020 which marked the beginning of a new program to transform India’s supply chain with targets in the vision for 2030.
To meet the growing demands and targets by CII, changes need to be done to the existing system. Be it enhancing food processing procedures or connecting the farmers directly to the market or just simplifying the supply chain process.
Challenges in Agriculture Supply Chain
A typical agriculture supply chain includes farmers, suppliers, transporters, retailers, distributors and end consumers. The involvement of various stakeholders at different levels in the supply chain complicates the complete process and exposes it to several risks. Some of the common challenges are:
- External factors such as diseases, pests, strikes, delays in transportation and weather increase the problems in the supply chain. They make it difficult to foresee and control the situation making it unclear to achieve the targets.
- Not able to keep a live tracking of the traditional supply chain, a lot of labour work, and delay in payment processing.
- Fraud or adulteration of products can happen at any stage of the supply chain. This negatively impacts the business stakeholders, consumers, and governments.
Digital Technologies Help Build Safer Supply Chain
Most of the businesses and industries these days are introducing analytics and digital technologies into the system. Agriculture players like farmers, suppliers, distributors, and even end customers are exploring the benefits of digital technologies. This is also helping them to manage complex situations in the agriculture supply chain.
This introduction has not only increased the productivity and efficiency of the field staff but also converted challenges into possible opportunities. Improving farming practices and the introduction of digital technologies have also opened doors for Agritech in the supply chain.
With Artificial Intelligence and blockchain-based supply chains, the agriculture players can have significant savings on the cost for growing, procurement and moving crops through this system.
Other benefits of the introduction of digital technologies in the agricultural supply chain are as follows:
- The use of artificial intelligence will in reducing the post-harvest loss due to weather conditions, storage or transportation. This will also help in managing the production of crops as per the requirement for all or specific grains.
- A blockchain-based supply chain can help in providing a tracking system to reduce fraudulent or adulteration to the produce. Also, a consumer can scan a QR code to verify the organic nature of the products.
- A system to optimize the supply chain and learn everything about the complete process. It starts from the weather forecasts, logistics, and even market price uncertainty or risk. This is possible as now we have increased data storage capacity to assess the profits and loss as well as the complete process of transportation, packing and distribution.
In a nutshell with digital technologies, we can develop a digital twin or supply chain identical to the physical supply chain. It will run virtual simulations and optimize on various factors. This will happen right from, production, procurement, inventory to transportation and warehousing. This would eventually help in assessing target capacities such as process duration, benefit, stock improvement, acquisition and transportation.
A clear long-term vision for introducing digital technology is the need of the hour. The ongoing pandemic has also highlighted the need for a better system. Understanding these concerns and turning this into an opportunity to be a helpful hand in the new-age supply chain, Bijak which is India’s Number 1 Agritrading Startup came up with a solution called ChargeERP. ChargeERP is a mandi accounting software that can act as a Data loss prevention solution for you as everything is saved over the cloud with end-to-end encryption. This means your data is always safe and you could access it from anywhere & anytime.
ChargeERP accounting software has been designed keeping in mind the daily interactions of commission agents in agricultural mandis. It is a cloud-based accounting software introduced with the core aim of reducing the agent’s workload. ChargeERP is the easiest online accounting software available in India. One of the many benefits of this platform is that it can be accessed from anywhere and from multiple devices. It provides data security with end-to-end encryption. Plus, it doesn’t require any kind of technical or accounting expertise.
If you are looking to explore more about this next-level accounting software, feel free to dial +91 9311341199 or visit www.chargeerp.com, and request your free demo today. We also suggest that you follow us on Facebook for regular updates. You can also view the latest instructional videos on the ChargeERP YouTube channel.